27/06/2005

Isolated places had the upper hand this year at the third Ischia Film Festival, an event entirely dedicated to film locations and their subsequent appeal for tourists. Last Saturday the 25th, the jury (presided over by Vittorio Giacci and the director Carlo Lizzani), gathered at the Guevara tower for the award ceremony, and honoured two first films: Saimir, by Francesco Munzi (Best Italian Film) and The Story of the Weeping Camel, by Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni (international winner). These two films, in which the landscape itself is a protagonist, were shot, respectively, in the deserted coast of Lazio (near Rome) and in a remote village in the Mongolian desert. This year's Best Documentary is I ragazzi della Panaria by Nello Correale, a film about the four youths who funded the small Sicilian production company who made Stromboli (1949), starring Anna Magnani. In the short film section, the winner is Capolinea by Mario Cosentino, starring Donatella Finocchiaro.

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Also among the other films rewarded this year are L'iguana, Tartarughe sul dorso ('Turtles on their backs'), and the German production Cow Girl. The Coral Ciak for a Life’s Work was awarded to Vittorio Storaro, a director of photography who started his career in Ischia in the 60's and won three Oscars. The main event this year was the opening of the Bict (Italian film and tourism exchange meeting), designed for producers, tour-operators and film commissions to help create tighter and more efficient links between tourism and the film industry. These professionals will also meet at the Bit, in Milan, and return to Ischia, for the fourth edition of the festival. After a first trial for press only, next year's Ischia Festival will include a new 'movie tour', presenting its many locations, where over 40 international productions have been shot, such as Cleopatra (1963) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999),.

(Translated from Italian)